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CHICAGO — High-demand speaker and energetic activist Andrew Slack offers ALA Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits attendees an outstanding opportunity to learn more about his work and how he sees it relating to libraries and their role in the community. Co-founder and executive director of the Harry Potter Alliance, Slack is currently developing the Imagine Better Network - "an unprecedented movement that goes beyond Harry Potter to all fandoms so that fantasy is no longer an escape from our world, but an invitation to change it for the better." Slack will be welcomed by Barbara K. Stripling at the ALA President’s Program from 3:30 - 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 26.

Under Slack’s leadership, the Harry Potter Alliance has created more than 170 chapters in schools and communities (and soon libraries) across the U.S. and world. These chapters and hundreds of thousands of members have built libraries, sent five cargo planes to Haiti and made great strides in both human rights and equality-based advocacy. As a Nathan Cummings Foundation Fellow for his innovation in social justice work, Slack is spending one year in New York City developing the Imagine Better Network. He has been profiled in Fast Company, NPR, NYT and the front cover of Forbes.com and written for both the LA Times and CNN. He’s given two TEDx talk and served as a keynote speaker at the Nobel Peace Prize Forum.

The Harry Potter Alliance is a coalition of fandom leaders and members who feel passionate about the power of story to inspire and affect social change. Just as Harry and his friends fought the Dark Arts in J.K. Rowling’s fictional universe, they “strive to destroy real-world horcruxes like inequality, illiteracy, and human rights violations.” Look for the Harry Potter Alliance booth in the Exhibit Hall (details available closer to January).